Deloitte 2019 Blockchain Report

THE BLOCKCHAIN STORY is beginning a new chapter, one in which the questions executives are asking are tougher, more granular, more grounded, and more pragmatic. They are questions that show an emerging awareness that the technology seems ready for prime time. It works. Now executives must figure out how to make the technology work for them—how to leverage innovation created by emerging disruptors and how to align within the ecosystem.

The survey seems to make clear this evolving landscape of pragmatism and maturation—more varied use cases and applications than last year, across a greater variety of sectors. Respondents show a more balanced view of expectations and concerns than last year, pointing to an increasingly practical sensibility. And indeed, what appears to be happening every day in the real world also appears to confirm what our survey is telling us: A day hardly seems to pass in which we do not read about new blockchain use cases or new ways to tokenize assets.

Certainly, blockchain remains a subject of debate. But the tone and terms of the debate themselves seem to be shifting, reflecting more developed use cases and strategic visions of the future. Even those who may have looked askance at the technology in the past appear to be viewing blockchain with a new sense of possibility.

Of course, nobody can accurately predict the future, and Deloitte also does refrain from predicting a precise timeline on blockchain’s greater adoption. Yet the trajectory for blockchain in 2019 and going forward appears to point in a clearly upward direction. And that journey is the story of growth and potential that disruptive technologies characteristically take, offering adopters tangible strategic advantage in ways that few thought imaginable before.